Blood of a Thousand Stars

by Rhoda Belleza

  “I didn’t mean to offend,” Dahlen said, in the tone of someone who doesn’t give a taejis whether he offended or not. Pavel began to creep up again, but this time Dahlen pushed him back. “But is it not true that the public was just waiting for a reason to hate you? Nero has an impeccable sense of timing. He seized on that suspense. He set you up.”

  “Thanks for the recap, but I could have just streamed the reruns.” It didn’t matter that his name had been cleared, or that Rhiannon still lived; the damage was done. There were some people who never trusted him and never would. Aly felt anger ripple through him.

  “I can’t imagine how much it would displease Nero if he knew you’d abandoned the UniForce only to end up fighting on behalf of the WFC.” If Dahlen could tell Aly was fuming, he didn’t show it. He didn’t let up, either. “In Nero’s book, that’s treason.”

  It was treason, in anyone’s book. A shudder of suspicion ran through Aly. “Is this some sort of threat?” His back tensed in his seat.

  “It’s not a threat. Imagine the ratings, should Nero capture you: notorious criminal, traitor to the UniForce.”

  Suddenly, Aly understood. What an idiot he was—thinking Dahlen had recruited him for his performance. “So you’re handing me over?”

  “No.” Dahlen appeared calm—not that this was any different from how he always seemed, which annoyed the hell out of Aly. He tried to check his rage, but it was wild, leaping inside him. “But that’s what we want Nero to think. Here’s how we’re going to get him. We’re going to trap him. I don’t need you to shed his blood, Alyosha. I just need you to be—”

  “The bait,” Alyosha finished bitterly. “I get it.”

  And yet—it was a decent plan, one that played right into Nero’s weakness for spectacle, for heroism, and for publicity. The man was a human peacock.

  “Do I have your agreement?” Dahlen asked.

  To use him as live bait. Aly didn’t like the plan one bit. But if it would mean Nero died . . . “I’m assuming I don’t have a choice.”

  Just then a soldier burst into the tent. His pale skin and pointed ears were a dead giveaway for a full-blooded Fontisian. He looked like he was sweating bullets, and he glanced around urgently, probably not used to so many high-ranking officers in one space. He bowed.

  “You haven’t interrupted us unless there’s a message to be conveyed?” the Fontisian officer said. The boy nodded, bringing his hand from his cube to the glass dome on the center of the table. It projected a holographic map of Wraeta, or the pieces left of it, all corralled by the giant electromagnetic net.

  “Nero and Empress Ta’an have agreed to ease off his planned military offensive on Uustral as well as Nau Fruma and territories in Relia Quadrant. A United Planets council has already been scheduled to discuss the accords. They will announce later today, 1800 Kalusian time.”

  Dahlen frowned. “I imagine he has not made this promise without conditions.”

  The general nodded in Uustralite fashion; his large head traced circles in the air. “Curious: It seems Nero is willing to stand down if Kalu is granted exclusive access to Wraeta’s surface.”

  “It’s likely they want access to minerals that will fuel their armada.”

  “It would take forever to convert all that raw material,” an Uursalite officer said.

  “Well, maybe he plans for this war to go on forever . . .” another officer mumbled.

  Aly felt the skin on his neck prickle. Kara’s mother, Lydia, had indicated that the overwriter—a tech with enough power to not just strip away all of Kara’s memories of her childhood but alter them too—was hidden on Wraeta.

  Aly hadn’t wanted to believe that it existed. But what if it did? Nero was trying to spy on people, that much was obvious, and he already had pretty sophisticated tech. But he’d known the G-1K summit scientists had created something even better. The overwriter. That had to be it. That’s why Lydia had wanted it hidden.

  “The overwriter,” Aly blurted out. He’d stood up, and now all eyes were on him.

  “The what?” a Wraetan general asked.

  Aly licked his lips. His throat felt dry; he couldn’t talk.

  “Nero wants the overwriter.” He wasn’t sure what made him so certain, but between the giant satellite that was acting more as a receptor than a broadcaster, and the stories Lydia had told them of the G-1K summit scientists, and the creepy lab of lobotomized patients he’d seen on the zeppelin with Kara, he was starting to outline a picture in his mind of Nero’s intentions.

  That beautiful piece of science that had taken Kara’s memories. She’d wanted to track it and destroy it, for precisely this reason. It would be a deadly weapon in the wrong hands.

  Everyone around the table began arguing at once—demanding to know how he knew of this overwriter, whether it could exist, and why they should believe Aly, the Revolutionary Boy turned outlaw turned vigilante turned Dahlen’s bait. The translator went haywire trying to keep up with the acoustics. Feedback cut through Aly’s ear and into his brain. A high-ranking Fontisian with an electric ring sent out a signal to jam the translator so it dropped. Now it was a flurry of languages, but all the same angry pitch.

  “Enough!” Dahlen shouted in Fontisian, and everyone immediately went quiet. The Fontisians looked like they’d been slapped. Aly would have bet he’d never raised his voice before.

  In the perfect silence, Dahlen turned to Aly. A low hum meant the translator net was live again. “Where did you hear about the overwriter?” he asked.

  “So you’ve heard of it?”

  “There’s very little the order hasn’t heard of. They knew of its creation, were involved for years in trying to . . .”

  It was unusual for Dahlen to trail off. “Trying to what?” Aly prompted.

  “To neutralize it.” Dahlen paused. There was a strange look on his face. As if he was trying to digest something sharp.

  “Neutralize it?” Aly repeated. “Why not just destroy it?”

  “You don’t understand.” Dahlen shook his head. “There’s a living element.”

  “And?”

  “We’re not to do harm to any harmless beings.”

  Aly half expected Dahlen to laugh, or someone to admit to a joke. But after another expanse of silence, he cleared his throat. “You’re some warrior monk who’s slaughtered, like . . . I don’t know how many people. Anyone hazard a guess? Anyone?” he said, looking around. “You’re telling me you can’t destroy a weapon that could cause mass destruction because it’s got some cells all up in it?”

  Dahlen stared at him coldly. “You wouldn’t understand, and I don’t presume you ever will. In any event, the directive is to neutralize it, so that’s what we’ll do. If the overwriter is hidden on Wraeta, and Nero is headed there to find it, we need to get you there first.”

  “Let’s round up the troops, then.” Aly stood up, brushing off his fatigues for a little bit of flourish. He did it so they wouldn’t see the way his hands shook. “Don’t want to keep Nero waiting.”

  Part Three:

  THE COMPROMISED

  “Not only does one worship the ancestors to honor the physical bodies from which they came, but also to honor the spiritual inheritance one receives. Lineage is remembered during the prayer, its lessons applied day to day. If such lessons lose their resonance, it is believed that one becomes lost.”

  — Excerpt from A Comprehensive Guide to Kalusian Cultural Practices

  FOURTEEN

  KARA

  KARA stumbled again, as the person hauling her forward gave the rope binding her wrists a sharp tug. The noise of the market had faded, and she’d lost all track of time. How far had they gotten from the warehouse, from the medcraft? Would the other medics ever find them now? Would they even bother to look?

  She hoped that Issa, at least, had managed to escape. But she knew better than to count on
it.

  She shivered. A mist had rolled in—Kara felt it on her exposed skin.

  Princess Josselyn. Whoever they were, they knew who she was. They’d recognized her. Had she come all this way just to die on a rock in the middle of nowhere, before she got to the overwriter?

  Before she got to see her sister again?

  That last thought surprised her. She hadn’t been thinking of Rhiannon—Rhee. Had purposely tried not to. Because Rhee wasn’t really her sister, and if Kara was able to follow through with the overwriter, Rhee never would be her sister—but Kara was still this halfway person, empty, trapped in between two identities.

  And now she was literally trapped.

  Kara gritted her teeth and tasted dust. Her muscles tensed, a steady tightening down the length of her.

  She was led over a threshold into a small building of some kind. The walls felt close; the room smelled vaguely of something both acrid and sweet. It reminded Kara of the starchy vegetable stew she’d learned to make all those nights Lydia was working late. Her insides ballooned with grief.

  Then a hand pulled the bag from Kara’s head. Her hair floated around her face, even more than usual in the slightly lower gravity. The room—a small space, empty except for a few chairs and a used wooden table—was so quiet she could hear the strands of hair crackle with static.

  Her captors—four of them in all—were half-concealed by the heavy shadows. But one of them stepped forward, edging into the light. A smile twisted his face. The effort made the scar on his cheek turn white. Kara disliked him. She was pleased to see the dirt mark on his robe—he must be the one she had kicked earlier. He reached out a gloved hand and grabbed Kara’s chin.

  “She bit me on the way over,” he said, turning back to his companions. “I should return the favor—”

  Kara threw her head toward his nose, but he managed to jerk backward, and struck her down with a backhand before she could regain her balance. Her face slammed into the dirt floor, and the pain of it nearly shattered her. There was a metallic taste in her mouth—she’d clamped down on her tongue. Blood bubbled on her lips. Her vision was going fuzzy as the pain in her skull ballooned . . .

  One of the others hauled Kara to her feet, then shoved her roughly into a chair. Kara’s heart beat wildly.

  “We aren’t going to hurt you,” the man said. His breath smelled of fermented elderberry. And Kara recognized his voice—he was the one who’d called her Princess.

  “You have a seriously messed-up way of showing it.” Her heart was doing jumping jacks in her chest. She fought through her own nausea to sit up straight.

  The man behind her leaned down to breathe onto her neck, to torture her by slowly cranking her wrists upward, so her muscles screamed.

  She cried out. Almost immediately she felt him ease off her, just slightly, but before she could wonder at this sudden change of heart, she heard a strange zipping noise—followed by a thud as the man fell to the ground, releasing her completely.

  One minute he was there. The next, he was laid out flat.

  “What the hell, Imogen?” One of the other captors addressed the question to the only woman in the group. Kara saw something silvery coiled in her hand.

  “He said don’t use unnecessary force, Kai,” she called back. The man—Kai, apparently—slowly sat up, one hand on the back of his neck. “You breathing down the Princess’s neck seems pretty unnecessary to me.”

  The noise came again, a high-pitched zip, and a slim silver cable uncoiled from Kai’s ankle. Kara hardly caught a glimpse of it, a fine silver snake, before it retracted into whatever Imogen held in her palm.

  She met Kara’s eyes. “No need to scowl, sweetie. He’s not going to hurt you.”

  “Don’t call me that,” Kara fired back. The Imogen girl was a few years older than her, tops.

  Imogen smiled. She had small features that would’ve seemed fragile on anyone else, but in her beige jumpsuit and dark leather boots, she just seemed sharp, like if you touched her, you’d be the one to get hurt. “Whatever you say, Princess.”

  Kara could have screamed. It had been stupid to fight. She saw that now. She raised her chin. “What do you want?”

  “What do you think they want?”

  Kara turned, surprised—the voice, hoarse with age and exhaustion, came from what had seemed at first glance to be a pile of junk heaped in one corner. But then the pile shuddered, and took the shape of an old man. As he raised his head, she saw that his face appeared bruised.

  “Credits,” he finished bitterly. “Doesn’t it always come down to credits?”

  “Sure does, Diac,” Imogen drawled. “And it did for you too. At least, it used to.”

  Diac. He was the original creator of the overwriter; he had built it with Lydia’s help. He was supposed to have been dead. And for a second Kara felt sure that this was why she had been sent to Ralire—to find him.

  But Diac, too, had been made a prisoner. His hands were tightly bound, his face pulpy with bruises.

  A trap.

  “Who’s paying you?” Kara asked, directing the question to Imogen. For a split second of horror, she wondered if her own sister was behind the attack.

  “Don’t know, don’t care.” Kai was on his feet again, and his smile was even nastier than before. “But our payment is way bigger than the one Kalu’s own empress was offering.”

  “On that note,” Imogen said, “watch them.”

  Kai nodded, but kept near the door, poking his head out every few seconds. He seemed anxious, and Kara assumed that Imogen and the others had gone to negotiate her ransom. She couldn’t even be afraid anymore. She barely registered her headache. Now she could only focus on the deep, dull ache—an empty hollow in her rib cage.

  She had failed.

  “I’m sorry I brought you here,” Diac said, after a long stretch of silence. “It wasn’t on purpose.”

  Kara nearly told him it didn’t matter now.

  But he went on, “I encoded the message to open for you, and only for you—there are vast stretches of your DNA that haven’t changed, despite the scrambler—and gave it to the Lancer. I knew, or I hoped, that one day Lydia would send you to find him. The holographic message was coded to direct you to wherever I was at the time. In this case”—he lifted his hands to show his restraints—“in prison.”

  “Lydia thought you were dead.”

  Diac sighed. “I know. It was easier that way.”

  “You mean safer—for you,” Kara said.

  “It was all for nothing,” he said. There was a note of shame in his voice. “I’ve served my purpose. They won’t let me out of here alive.”

  Kara knew this was probably true. She was quiet for a bit. Then: “So the overwriter was never here on Ralire? It’s been on Wraeta all along?”

  “As far as I know,” he said. “The capital would be totally razed by now. Your mother had a greenhouse there . . . if you stood on the southern pole in the springtime you could line it up with Etra, the Wolf, with Rilirinas, the Guardian, and Samba, the Matron.” He smiled, and Kara knew why—it was a message. He was giving her star coordinates, something more permanent than street names.

  Lydia had taught Kara how to line them up, how to find the perpendicular point in three-dimensional space that corresponded to the midpoint of the hypotenuse. She remembered the lessons so vividly now, the acute boredom, how she never thought any of it would possibly be of any use, ever. Kara had been so wrong.

  “Your mother was brilliant,” he said, as if he had just read her mind.

  A fresh wave of grief traveled through her. “She wasn’t my mother.” Kara closed her eyes hard, as if she could forcibly scrub Lydia’s death from her memory, but it surfaced anyway. What had she planned, sending her to the Lancer? The more Kara discovered about Lydia, the less certain she was of her adopted mother’s intentions. What ha
d she wanted for Kara? Your blood—it’s the key to everything.

  “Did you know Lydia and I met your mother once? The Empress?” His voice was softer now.

  Kara shook her head, afraid if she spoke she might cry.

  “Lydia was properly starstruck. The elegance that woman had!” He looked away, as if he could stare beyond these walls and into the distance. “Do you know what they talked about?” he asked, his head snapping back. He didn’t wait for an answer. “Gardening . . .”

  “Of course,” Kara managed to say, letting out a laugh even as her throat tightened and the pulsing behind her eye sharpened.

  “There was something about the cycle of life and death, growth and regrowth, that appealed to her. Nature doesn’t have a memory. There’s not past or present or future—just an instinct to grow toward the sun.”

  Was that what Lydia had been trying to do when she helped create the overwriter? Collapse the past and the future into a single impulse of will, into a single moment when the story was rewritten?

  “Erzel. Do you know the word?” he said, switching to Fontisian. His accent was perfect, and he must have registered the surprise on her face. “Oh, yes. I’m half-Fontisian. My mother kept the secret of my father’s real identity for many, many years. I don’t blame her. There’s many who would have hated her for it—and me.”

  Age had so ravaged him that Kara could no longer see signs of the telltale Fontisian bone structure. But his eyes, she noticed, were ice blue. “‘Erzel’ means root.”

  “It means heart too,” he said. His mouth smiled but his eyes looked dull, sad. “It is a concept passed down from Vodhan himself. I was a scientist my whole life, but now, here, I realize that all along, they were right. The heart is the root. Our memories, our thoughts, our ideas—these flower, wither, die, and regenerate. But the spark of life is buried deeper. It can be accessed only by the heart.”